6 REPORT OF THE COMMISSIONER OF AGRICULTURE. 



posed upon her by the rebellion. Terrible as is the ordeal, time, moderation, 

 freedom, and industry will be the great healers and rectifiers ; so that it shall 

 be seen that even -war oflFcrs its compensations as well as peace. Plantations 

 that now contain from three to five thousand acres of land will be divided into 

 farms of from three to five hundred acres, which can be more easily and better 

 tilled, and made far more productive. While the south will continue to grow 

 the great staples, such as cotton, sugar, and rice, many other semi-tropical pro- 

 ductions may be introduced, of equal value and more easily cultivated, together 

 with all the cereals, grasses, fruits, and vegetables of the temperate zone. 



The half has not been told or tested in regard to the capabilities of the 

 southern States. In times jmst, all their available capital, skill, and labor 

 having been devoted to the cultivation of the great staples, no special attention 

 was given to other crops of equal value, more developing to the country and 

 more conducive to the comfort of the people. With smaller farms and intelli- 

 gent and interested labor, the following, among other articles, might be intro- 

 duced and successfully cultivated in the south : the tea and coffee plants ; the 

 opium poppy, the vanilla, ginger, castor bean, assafostida, wax and quassia 

 plants, silk cocoons, gum arabic, mastic and camphor trees, the Chinese yam, 

 the sweet chestnuts, the earth and other almonds of southern Europe, the Per- 

 sian walnut, the cork and gall-nut oak, the arrow, licorice, and on-is roots, 

 various valuable hemps and grasses, the prune, fig, date, pomegranate, olive, 

 tamarind, guava, nectarine, shaddock, pineapple, and pistache, Iceland moss, 

 the cochineal, indigo, dyer's madder, frankincense, balsam, Egyptian senna, 

 and various other productions which we now purchase abroad at an annual 

 expense of many millions of dollars. 



The articles above enumerated form but a small portion of the possible pro- 

 ductions of the south ; while she is known to be capable of yielding not only 

 the great staples of commerce and manufactures, but an abundance of almost 

 every kind of food if sufficient attention was paid to its cultivation. It is a 

 notorious fact that in the palmiest days of the south, except on the tables of the 

 wealthier classes, the diet of the great body of the people, in variety of meats, 

 vegetables, and fruits, was generally poor and often produced elsewhere, simply 

 because tillage was otherwise directed or totally neglected. 



Although discussion on the subject of the exhausted and abandoned lands 

 of the south and the best modes of reclaiming them would be, just now, a most 

 valuable contribution to the agricultural needs and changing condition of the 

 country, yet I have not, at present, the data necessary for such an undertaking. 

 Let me call attention, therefore, more especially to Virginia, one of the greatest 

 but most neglected agricultural States of the Union. 



Virginia contains 39,265,280 acres of territory, only 11,435,954 of which 

 are under cultivation of one sort or another, the remainder being wild, worthless, 

 or abandoned land. In 1860 the total population of the State was 1,596,318, 

 490,865 being slaves, who were owned by some 55,000 masters. At that time 

 the actual number of whites over fifteen years of age engaged in agriculture was 

 ftnly 108,304. The rebellion has materially altered these figures, and com- 



